Microsoft Looks to Abolish Silos With Integrated Dynamics

Microsoft opened its Microsoft Convergence conference today in Atlanta with a bevy of updates, partnerships, and applications that enhance the company's ability to provide businesses with a unified view of customers. Specifically, the company showcased new wrinkles that emanate from Microsoft's recent acquisitions of Marketing Pilot, Net Breeze, and Parature.

In addition to user interface updates, Microsoft will now utilize the capabilities of Net Breeze to enhance social listening across the platform with Microsoft Social Listening, a capability that gives businesses real-time, 24/7 social visibility. Microsoft Social Listening will also enable marketers to gauge their brand's social buzz and popularity, as well as the nature of the social discussions surrounding the brand at any given time.

Social Listening, as well as other services and apps within Microsoft Dynamics, will integrate better with Microsoft's cloud service Windows Azure. Microsoft Social Listening will be offered at no additional charge as part of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM online professional licenses while on-premises customers will pay an additional $20 per user, per month for the feature.

Additionally, the company elaborated on its partnership with InsideView. Speaking at the conference, InsideView CMO Umberto Milletti noted the partnership will help businesses identify what companies they're dealing with, why that company may want to hear from said business, and how that business can get connected to that company. Microsoft Dynamics CRM will have these capabilities out of the box.

“We've built a CRM system that people actually want to use,” Microsoft corporate VP of CRM Bob Stutz said at the event. “If you're going to use an application all day then we want to make sure you love to use it.”

“All of these offerings are coming together to break down barriers between marketing, tech, and service,” added Fred Studer, president of product marketing for CRM.

Microsoft showcased its ERP solution for enterprises Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3. This update introduces a new end-to-end apps and services framework, allowing businesses to develop and distribute modern apps for specific scenarios and mobile devices that can connect with Microsoft Dynamics AX.

All updates to Microsoft Dynamics are slated for an early May 2014 release.

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